State servants behave with more integrity than their masters

The State Services Commission's new report on the integrity of our state
services reflects the yawning gap between the behaviour of
public servants and that of their political masters,
Labour's State Services spokesperson Maryan Street says.

“This report, which surveyed over 13,000 public
servants from a variety of state sector entities, showed
that our public servants understand what integrity means.
That stands in stark contrast to some of the behaviour we
have seen from Ministers in the past few years.

“The fact that public servants feel their colleagues
and managers demonstrate integrity in their work and are
proud to be part of their department or agency is to be
applauded.

“A need for more education around
ethics was highlighted to provide a robust process around
whistleblowing. I hope government agencies don't look to
current Ministers for that.

“If your example of
ethics is a Minister who passes on private contact details
of a public servant to a destructive blogger, then they will
have to look elsewhere for guidance.

“Judith
Collins is now on her ‘last, last’ warning from the
Prime Minister. We can't even rely on ethics in practice
from the growing list of John Key, Judith Collins, Nick
Smith, Maurice Williamson, Murray McCully, Gerry Brownlee
and Jonathan Coleman. And some of them, like Judith Collins
and Nick Smith, are serial offenders.

“I thank
public servants for behaving with integrity even when their
masters don't,” Maryan Street says.

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